Hokage - Shadow of Fire Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
Hokage - Shadow of Fire
Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
Starrings: Shuri, Mirai Moriyama, Ouga Tsukao, Hiroki Kono, Tatsushi Ômori
Origin: Japan
Year 2023
Review author: Shane Virunphan
Click Here for Italian Version
“You could be my bodyguard.”
At the end of the Second World War, the destruction of Japan, after the dropping of the two atomic bombs, had reached its peak. It wasn't just a humanitarian catastrophe. It wasn't just the material devastation of the country. There was something more. Leonardo Vittorio Arena explains it:
“The end of the Second World War caused their self-confidence to waver, calling into question an ancient scale of values. They were victims of a sort of alienation: they could no longer find comfort in the old world, nor did they understand how to make space for themselves in the new.
To get out of the impasse, in the face of which many of them have chosen suicide or isolation, there is nothing better than recalling a claimed sense of superiority, of very ancient heritage. The dramatic condition of the Japanese in the post-war period was shown in films such as Kurosawa's Living, or reached its peak in the paroxysmal behavior of writers such as Mishima.” (1)
Mental clarity, pride, the ancient motivations of a life, the models, the emperor, the religion became insecure causing psychic and physical effects.
In addition to the film Vivere, remembered by professor Leonardo Vittorio Arena, other films by Akira Kurosawa, directed with a neorealistic approach, recall the disordered impulses of the survivors of unconditional surrender.
Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto proposes, with his cruel and exaggerated style, an original vision of the era and above all launches yet another anti-militarist arrow into international cinema.
At the 80th Venice International Film Festival he presented the film Hokage - Shadow of Fire, shocking for the simple representation of a pain that is still present and needs to be processed, even though many years have passed.
In Hokage, Shinya Tsukamoto, is more sentimental and affectionate than in Nobi - Fires On the Plain presented in 2014, also in Venice.
In Nobi he used the same language as his first films in the Tetsuo series, in which there was:
“… transposition into images of one of the traumas of the human body: joining, being a single part with a machine, with pieces of a robot.” (2)
The style in Nobi is a:
“… real nightmare, something that actually happened, and incredibly, no one can exclude its repetition in the future… The monstrous vision is war. For the Japanese it means the disastrous Second World War... Due to the geographical structure of the Philippines, many Japanese soldiers remained isolated, stuck in the jungle... But the retreat was a massacre. The Japanese were already undernourished, without supplies for a long time.” (2)
His narration of:
“ … Shinya Tsukamoto in his style, in his language, in his apocalyptic, over the top interpretation. Exaggeratedly, he spares us no nuance. Indeed, the director manages to shock by going into detail, dragging into the putrid wounds together with the flies or worms, achieving the success of provoking inhuman reactions. … It induces nausea, revulsion, repugnance. The hospital is immersed in dirty red blood. Wounded soldiers are treated without medicine, without hygiene, without anesthesia. The doctor intervenes with his bare hands, inserting them into the gashes. Blood splatters all over the screen.” (2)
The soldiers look like:
“…zombies because they are powerless, they walk in pain and dejection. They lose their bowels, their guts, their intestines; legs and arms are cleanly amputated and abandoned while what remains of the body continues to fight. Not even leeches and worms prevent the desire to save oneself. Despite the predicted death, the suffering, the malnutrition, there is even something more threatening that scares them." (2)
These necrophiliac details, the tales of cannibalism, the rotting wounds, the bloody flesh, are surrounded by an aura of hope, minimal, limited but still a glimmer of optimism. For the troops remaining in the Philippines, the only hope is a quick death. For the protagonists of Hokage, perhaps it is plausible to start a new life.
Hokage is the story of a girl who survived a half-destroyed tavern. Husband and son were killed in the war. Surviving is not easy. She lacks the essentials so she prostitutes herself for something to eat, for little money. A very young soldier enters her inn. Dirty, run down, confused, deranged he is only looking for some comfort in that room.
Added to this is a malnourished, dirty boy who no longer has a family and lives by robbing around. He has also stolen a gun and walks with the weapon, although he is not aware of its usefulness.
Soldier and child feel a sense of optimism as they attach themselves to the woman. A spirit of survival comes to him. Incredibly, the hope comes from the black market. He is frequented by a crowd, including many miserable people looking for food and by profiteers capable of selling at very high prices, selfishly disinterested in the surrounding poverty.
Shinya Tsukamoto got the idea for the film from a real black market:
“The starting point of this interest of his which then led to his career was above all the fact that in the post-war period there was a black market, I was very interested in the fact that a place that is actually not managed by law has at the same time many aspects dark but also functions a lot of life and a lot of energy so that was the starting point from which he then developed the idea of concrete always which above all is very interesting how it deals with the theme of the post-war drama how the soldier also perceives for example the In my opinion, the sound of the shots was very interesting because it also shows you the reactions of these soldiers who later have those........” (3)
In the black market there is the artifice of anarchism, typical of a society defeated in a bloody conflict, when the rules disappear due to lack of authority. In the absence of laws and morals, a determination, a vitality emerges, the basis for a new civilization and a different world.
This is the difference with Nobi. In the latter, soldiers are sentenced to death. In Hokage the survivors may have a chance but it is necessary to transit a black market.
The three main characters are scared, dark, sick, dirty, often violent. The soldier beats the girl and throws the child out the window. On the other hand, the boy breaks a bottle over his head. They are self-destructive, bad, disillusioned, short-tempered, disturbed.
At a certain point the director breaks away from the primary plot to tell a secondary story. A man, an ex-soldier, rents the child's gun and together they wander for a long time. They arrive at a house. His officer lives in the villa. The ex-soldier confronts him, threatens him with a revolver, wants to kill him. The reason is revenge. The officer ordered his platoon to carry out heinous acts. The ex-military man has a shattered conscience and wants to free himself by placing all the blame on the commander. But is there personal guilt in a war? Could a trial really recognize the unnecessary responsibilities, massacres and ferocity? Is it honestly possible to distinguish the difference between an act of war and a war crime, i.e. do they both have the same meaning? Or does a trial against alleged criminal losers only have a desire for justice or is it a justification for the winners to decree and humiliate the defeated?
Shinya Tsukamoto shocks with the unseen but imagined details of the defeat.
Nobi's dark sequences are now replaced by the relaxedness of a specific photograph. The source of the light is artificial, almost fake, disturbing. Or like the scene in the market, with a low shot of the feet. That is, the darkness, the night shots of the avenging soldier.
The structure is quick. Presentation of the characters, with an exact delineation of the motivations and their existence. There are no insights into the protagonists, they are understood exclusively through the perception of fragments. This is why it is important to read the images.
The conflict is intrinsic and the consequences are more comprehensive even if the twist appears in the market with the child. He promised the girl to stop stealing. He arrives at the market stall where he had looted some food and items. Despite the master's beatings, the boy begins to work for him. The owner with feigned indifference hands him a piece of bread, this is the hope, a piece of bread.
Catharsis happens with the girl. She has fallen ill, her face is becoming disfigured, the disease is contagious. She locks herself in a closet in the room and no one can help her. Japan is in total suffering and cannot care about the fate of a single person.
The narrative time is based on the rhythm, on the harmony between the dear characters, who continually arrive and leave. The tension is concentrated in demonstrating the author's thesis on the infinite evil of war.
The film has a sepulchral atmosphere and is full of suffering, it is a fine and invisible dust, it clouds reason destroyed by the madness of war. There is no ethical element, who cares about good and evil when the mind is overwhelmed by countless deaths.
The film is important, it has an elegant formality, a candor and a purity of image.
Leonardo Vittorio Arena, Lo spirito del Giappone. La filosofia del Sol Levante dalle origini ai giorni nostri, I edizione BUR Saggi, Milano, gennaio 2008 Translated by Authout
Roberto Matteucci, “Nobi - Fires On The Plain Regista: Shinya Tsukamoto”, 1 novembre 2023, https://popcinema.org/film/nobi Translated by Authout